Mormon leader delights in songs of ‘precious children’ as he wraps up African tour

(Photo courtesy LDS Church) LDS President Russell M. Nelson holds a young girl from Zimbabwe's Mormon community during a stop in the southern Africa nation Tuesday. Nelson's wife, Wendy, also is pictured.

He added: “I would like to suggest that you read the scriptures to your children [and] I hope you’ll teach these children to be good citizens of this wonderful country.”

Nelson, accompanied by his wife, Wendy, and apostle Jeffrey R. Holland and his spouse, Patricia, is halfway through an April 10-23 globe-trotting tour that next takes the delegation to Bengaluru, India. From there, Nelson and his entourage will visit Bangkok, Thailand, and Hong Kong before making their last stop in Honolulu.

In his remarks, Holland praised the rapid growth of the church in Zimbabwe, which today has nearly 32,000 Latter-day Saints in 79 congregations. In April 2016, Harare was announced as a planned site for a new Mormon temple.

“What a wonderful, wonderful, growing, dramatic, significant component you are of this church,” Holland said. “Your history has only begun, and really the church’s history has only begun in terms of what it will yet be. But I’m thrilled to be with you, observing history.”

Members began arriving at 8 a.m., nine hours before the devotional with the LDS leaders.

“That shows that everyone is ready,” Gibson Guzha of Harare said in an LDS Church news release, “and doesn’t want to miss this historic event.”